Integrated Children's System

Child's Plan

For children and young people identified as having more
complex needs, a core assessment should be undertaken.
A Child’s Plan is completed following
a core assessment. The format for a Child’s
Plan is more detailed and will revise and replace
an Initial Plan for a child or young
person.

A Child's Plan is the Child
Protection Plan for those children whose names
have been placed on the child protection register. A Child’s
Plan will still be required for those children
who have had their names removed from the register, or
who have ceased to be looked after, but remain children
in need and who are in receipt of social services.

The Child’s Plan has been designed
for use with all children in need who are not looked after
or leaving care and may also be used with children and
young people receiving short break care in conjunction
with Part One of the Care Plan.

A Child’s Plan is informed by
a core assessment and should identify how the following
will be addressed:

the identified developmental needs of the child
or young person;

attributes which impact on parents’ and
carers’ capacities to respond to the needs
of the child or young person, drawing on their
strengths and areas of competence whilst recognising
difficulties;

wider family and environmental factors which
may have an impact on the child or young person
and family, drawing on strengths in the wider
family and community as well as identifying difficulties.

The plan should be specific about the actions to be taken,
identify who is responsible for each action, and any services
or resources that will be required to ensure that the
planned outcomes can be achieved within the agreed time-scales.

Key Features

Type of plan

This identifies the nature of Child’s
Plan that has been developed, only one box should be
ticked.

Type of Plan
(please tick as appropriate):

Where a Child in Need Plan includes short break-care
care. Part One of the Care Plan and a Placement Agreement
should be completed.

Child in Need plan

Child in Need including short-break care

Child Protection Plan

Overall aim and timescale for the plan

This sets out the overall objective
that the individual actions detailed in the plan are
intended to contribute to.

Example 7: Karen Hawthorne, aged
3 years, was placed on the child protection register
under the category of neglect. Karen’s weight
had fallen below the third centile, with no medical
cause, and there were concerns that the home environment
posed a risk to her health and safety. Following the
child protection conference, based on the outline child
protection plan and core assessment the Core Group developed
a Child’s Plan for Karen.

The overall aim of the Child’s Plan for Karen was:

OVERALL AIM OF THE PLAN AND TIMESCALES

For Karen to attain and maintain satisfactory developmental
progress within a safe family and home environment
by the date of the second review conference.

Actions and services

These are recorded in a tabular format that is used throughout
the Integrated Children’s System. There is an individual
table for each of the seven dimensions of children and
young person’s needs and one for Parenting Capacity
and one for Family and Environmental Factors.

The plans should include actions to be provided by family
members and may include actions to be undertaken by the
child or young person.

Any action and service provided by another agency or organisation
should be discussed and agreed with the agency or organisation
concerned before it is included in the Child’s
Plan. In some cases, another agency may have
a plan in place for a child or young person, for example,
a Personal Education Plan. When developing the
Child’s Plan it is important to
be aware of the existence of other plans and to consider
how they fit together and can be reviewed effectively.
In some cases, with the agreement of the other agencies
and the family, it may be possible to use the Child’s
Plan to bring together all plans into one multi-agency
plan.

Views of all parties

All parties including the child or young person, if appropriate,
should sign the completed plan and provided with a copy.
Research with families indicates that they prefer to have
plans explained to them rather than receive a copy through
the post.

Date for plan to be reviewed

It is important that the Child’s
Plan is identified at regular intervals to
monitor the impact of actions and services and to evaluate
progress towards the overall aim of the plan. The
Framework for the Assessment of Children in Need and
their Families (Department of Health, 1999) sets
a maximum timescale of six months to review plans for
children in need.

Date Plan discussed in supervision

In addition to the formal process of review a Child’s
Plan should be regularly reviewed through supervision
to ensure that it remains appropriate to a child/young
persons needs.

Child young person’s comments

Parent(s)/main carer(s) comments

The proposed plan should be discussed
with the child or young person and their parent(s)/main
carer(s), who should be encouraged to give their views
on its contents and whether they think that it will
achieve the overall aim of the plan.

Links to other records in the Integrated Children’s
System

Completing a Child’s Plan for
children and young people receiving short break care

All children and young people receiving short break
care should have a Child’s Plan.

Children and young people who are provided
with accommodation for more than 24 hours by agreement
with the parents or with the young person if s/he is
aged 16 or over are defined as looked after under the
Children Act 1989. This means that they must have a
written Care Plan, Placement Information Record
and Agreements and that the care they receive
must be regularly reviewed in accordance with the Children
Act 1989 Regulations and Guidance.

Within the Integrated Children’s System the
Care Plan is in two parts. Part One
sets out the overall aim of the Care Plan
and can only be changed through a statutory review.
Part Two identifies the actions and services that
will be provided to meet the child or young person’s
needs and to achieve the overall aim of the Care
Plan.

Where the level of short break care provided means
that a child or young person is looked after then
part one of the Care Plan should
be completed. The Child’s Plan
will form part two of the Care Plan.
It will be important, therefore, that the objective(s)
of the short break care is clearly identified in the
appropriate domain or dimension of the Child’s
Plan.

Example 7: Ibriham Hussain, aged
14, is the only child of Mr Ali and Mrs Fatia Hussain.
Ibriham suffers from muscular dystrophy and has limited
mobility. He receives a number of services from Social
Services including transport and funding for out of
school activities at Link, a specialist centre for
disabled children. In addition to activities Link
provides short break care. The core assessment for
Ibriham identified that due to his age and size parents,
were finding it more difficult to manage Ibrihim,
at that a short break once a month at Link would be
beneficial for Ibrihim and his parents. The core assessment
also identified gaps in the area of Ibrihims self
care skills, he could not manage money, travel independently,
or cook a simple meal. Ibrihim and his parents were
in agreement to the use of short breaks and that these
should include a focus on developing Ibrihim’s
self-care skills.

The provision of short break care to Ibriham was recorded
under two of the developmental dimension’s within
his child’s plan, Family and Social Relationships
and Self- care Skills.

Self-Care Skills

Identified needs and strengths in each domain

How will these needs be responded to: actions
or services to be provided

Frequency and length of service: eg hours
per week

Person/
Agency responsible

Date Service will commence/
commenced

Planned outcomes: progress to be achieved
by next review or other specified date

Ibriham need to develop his self-care skills to
become more independent

Attendance at Link to be increased to include
overnight short break once a month.

Self care programme will be developed for Ibriham

Once a Month

Mary Grant
(Social worker)

Ibriham and James Page (Key worker)

20.03.2002

Ibriham will be able to:

Budget, plan, purchase and cook a simple meal.

The statutory review for a child or young
person receiving short break care should consider, the
Care Plan (Part One) and the Child’s
Plan.

In situations that require only Part One of the Care
Plan to be completed, the final section of
Part Two should also be completed as
this records the views of all parties regarding the
Care Plan and asks for their signatures. The
statutory review for a child or young person receiving
short break care should consider, the Care Plan
and the Child’s Plan.

Completing a Child’s Plan in Child
Protection Cases.

The structure of the Child’s Plan
allows it to be used when a child or young person’s
name has been placed on a child protection register.

The child protection conference should produce an
outline child protection plan for the child or young
person [See paragraph 5.69 Working Together to
Safeguard Children]. Within 10 working days of
the conference the core group appointed at the conference
should meet to develop the plan for the child and
young person. This will form the Child’s
Plan for the child or young person. The
Child’s Plan should be updated in the
light of the findings of the core assessment, if this
has not been completed by the time of the first core
group meeting.

The core group should meet regularly to monitor actions
and outcomes against the Child’s Plan,
and to make any changes as circumstances change. The
Child’s Plan will be the child
protection plan for a child and young person and should
be regularly reviewed in line with the timescales
set out in Working Together to Safeguard Children
[paragraph 5.90]. Reports on progress should be clearly
related to the planned outcomes of the Child’s
Plan.